Research analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has in the past offered accurate information on Apple's Mac product roadmap, recently took on a new position with KGI Securities and has published a new report today indicating that Apple may be preparing to drop the 17-inch MacBook Pro from its lineup due to weak sales.

Kuo's prediction comes as Apple is expected to introduce new notebooks that serve as a hybrid between the current MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models, offering greater power than the Air but greater portability than the Pro. Kuo believes that Apple will elect to drop the 17-inch size as part of this revamp in order to streamline the company's product offerings.

Quote:

Apple's Mac business in 2Q12 will be boosted by several factors. Three of which are: (1) Mountain Lion, which integrates iOS features with Mac OS, Apple TV's interaction function, will be launched in June; (2) upgrading to Ivy Bridge; and (3) back-to-school demand. We forecast Apple will sell 5.32mn units of the Mac series (up 28.5% QoQ and 35.2% YoY) in 2Q12, making it the main growth driver.

We also predict Apple will roll out a fully new MacBook model in early 3Q12, boasting strong performance and easy carryability by combining the advantages of MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.

While adding new products, Apple is likely to stop making the 17" MacBook Pro this year due to falling shipments, in order to maintain a lean product line strategy.

According to Kuo's estimates for the first calendar quarter of 2012, Apple sold roughly 3.1 million notebooks, with nearly half of them being the 13-inch MacBook Pro, far and away the company's best-selling Mac product. But while Kuo predicts sales of nearly 1.5 million units of the 13-inch MacBook Pro, he sees much lower sales of roughly 500,000 15-inch models and only 50,000 17-inch models.

Kuo estimates Apple's first quarter MacBook Air sales at roughly 1.1 million, split nearly equally between 11-inch and 13-inch models. He believes that the MacBook Air is only meeting Apple's expectations and not exceeding them, in large part because solid-state drives are not yet available in large enough capacities to satisfy consumers. But the trend of abandoning optical and traditional hard disk drives from notebooks will continue, and solid-state drives will continue to become more cost competitive over time.

Nooooo, Apple! Both of my last two Mac purchases have been 17" MBP's! They're brilliant! All the extra computing power plus the lots of extra screen real estate. Plus they fit perfectly in my backpack!

I'm quite disappointed with the sales number of the MacBook Air in the article, especially when it is compared with the strong sales of the MBP 13". MBA 13" is in every aspect much faster than the MBP 13", the screen is a lot better too. When you take the price of an equivalent SSD in the consideration, MBA 13" is much cheaper too.

I'm quite disappointed with the sales number of the MacBook Air in the article, especially when it is compared with the strong sales of the MBP 13". MBA 13" is in every aspect much faster than the MBP 13", the screen is a lot better too. When you take the price of an equivalent SSD in the consideration, MBA 13" is much cheaper too.

So are people buying the 13" MBP just for the word "Pro"?

Because we like having to ability to burn CD's without having to buy an external drive. We have an all-in-one.

ya realistically the macbook pro 13" offers no improvement over the 13" Macbook Air except the optical drive which I almost never use anyway. I'm looking forward to see what Apple does with their notebook offerings....

Hell I'm waiting for the day we have a 13" Macbook Air with a swivel touch screen thats snaps down over the keyboard. Wouldn't it be awesome to have the full power/functionality of Mac OS X in your hands but the capability of swivelling the screen and snapping it down and basically having an ipad mode?

NEVER going to happen!!! Apple won't do this for quite some time due to the about of professionals that use the 17" screen. Every time these ridiculous predictions come out they are BS. Mac Pro was supposed to be killed five years ago and it's still around. This is a rumor just like the iPhone 5 holographic keyboard and display. BS nothing more

There's no doubt the sales are a fraction. I hope this isn't true, as I'm a big fan of the 17". Since I have the anti-glare the lack of glass almost exactly offset the difference in weight between the 15 and 17 for me.... at least that's what I tell myself. After carrying a 15" for years, the move to the 17 wasn't noticeable for me, other than having a much more limited selection of laptop cases. Once I found a couple I liked, it was smooth sailing. I'd be disappointed to see it go, but would understand the reason.

As for the additional slot, I couldn't care less, nor has the additional USB port really been much of a advantage with my usage. The main thing for me is I typically have my terminal sessions on one side, and a browser on the other as I use both for day to day business.

I ended up buying a 17" MBP last year. It was a tough decision between it and the 15", but I went for the 17" b/c of its extra power. I absolutely love this laptop now, and can't imagine going back to a smaller screen. I'm a film post production major so the extra power and screen real estate are essential. It's going to be tough to see Apple discontinue this model. I guess a smaller MacBook Air (or iPad) and an iMac are in my future. It's just going to feel weird going from a monster laptop to a smaller one.

Wow. I never thought there was something that could make me consider switching *back*.

I really, really use the real estate on my 17" MBP. It's my third one and I feel cramped working on someone's 15" for all the application and screen switching I do when coding or working in Photoshop. And writing music on a 15"? Nope. I live on this thing and don't want to have to connect some external monitor to do much of my work (it defeats the point of having a laptop and being mobile).

Some people think the 17" MBPs are too big, some people sit down and are jealous. Apple, you're making enough money to continue serving your customers with a few slightly less profitable parts of the business needed by some of your customers.

Many of us have been watching the discussions of possible 15" MBPs with retina screens and have been patiently waiting for news about a 17" version. Rumors of discontinuing them was not what we were waiting for!!

Apple, please, please don't kill the 17".

[edit: Oh, and I use the 2nd USB port daily at work. It comes in handy to not need a hub to connect my phone (or external keyboard sometimes) and have a USB magnetic card reader for running customer's CCs.]

If you need a DVD drive, the MBA is out of the question. If you don't, you can replace the one inside the MBP with an SSD and have a clear space advantage over the MBA. I guess it depends on how much of your life has moved into the cloud already. (For me that's only a few 100kb of contacts and calendar items.)

I also think the stigma of a toy machine is going to last for a while, at least until more than three hardcore fans have adopted Thunderbolt. What do I do with my Firewire hard drives? FW800 was obscure enough as it is, finding a FW800<->TB adapter does not sound like fun.

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That said, just because machines are useful to *some* people does not mean Apple won't axe them. And a 17" screen with an anti-glare option sounds way too ergonomic for Apple's portfolio anyway